Ceril Tesus
Category:LDDD Characters Basic Information Name: Ceril Tesus Concept: Naieve Hero Player: ShadowDragon8685 Contact Info AIM: ShadowDragon8685 Email: ShadowDragon8685@gmail.com Motivation Exalt Type: Solar Caste: Dawn Age: 23 Anima: A massive golden knight, with large sword and shield, winged History Ceril's provenance is one of convolotion and conspiracy, but his life, until the moment he Exalted, was relatively ordinary, if precocious. His story starts before he was born; even indeed, before he was concieved. His parents were once reknowned pirates, plying the River Yanaze and occasionally the Inland Sea. His mother, a fair-skinned woman from the Southwest shore of the Great Ocean itself, was born to traders who sailed a course around the Inland Sea, taking products from North to South and back, to great profit, until their vessel was taken by pirates when she was a young child; pirates who, like the person she would become, plied the River Yanaze and sometimes the Inland Sea. The pirate captain had a lad the same age as she, and he spared the crew of the trading vessel as much as was possible, but took the daughter for a companion to his own son. Naturally, they grew up together, and became ferocious - and magnificently successful - pirates. Eventually, however, they would decide that a life of unending piracy was a garuntee of an eventual hanging (as had happened to Ceril's grandfather), and they decided to bestow upon their offspring a better life. There was one small problem; they were childless, though not for want of trying. They consulted wise men and thamaturgists, and it was discovered that Ceril's father simply could not make a woman pregnant. However, pirates are not dissuaded from their course by mere obstacles; and in their inability to concieve together, hatched a plan for even greater opportunity, for it was known to them that some of those who plied the great rivers were not mortals at all, but the Terrestrial Exalted. One of them could almost certainly make her pregnant; and so, with time, patience and much seduction, the mother managed to become gravid by one of the Terrestrial Exalts, of the Water Aspect. But what to do with this boon? Ceril's parents, realizing that they were playing with fire, decided to shoot for the highest mark within their reach; if their son Exalted, to put him in a position to be adopted into a life of luxury and power; one of the Families of the Scarlet Dynasty. No small dreamers were they. And they knew just how to do it; they sold their deep-water sailing vessel, realized their illicit gains, and sailed up the Yellow River, turning northwards at Mist Isle, up the Rock and Lesser Rock rivers, to settle in Greyfalls itself. Although outsiders, Ceril's parents (his mother gave birth to him shortly after they acquired a permanent residency in Canal Gate) were very savvy; having very intimate knowledge of merchanting (thanks to having plundered it for so long), they swifty set about establishing themselves as bisunesspeople, the gains from their career as pirates getting their feet in the door, and they failed to squander the opportunity; indeed, they turned to legitimate bisuness with every bit the ruthless efficiency with which they had scourged the River Yanaze. Soon, Ceril's parets (who had taken the family name Tesus) were having him educated well, though he never took to lessons of cerebral nature as much as his parents would have appreciated. He did, however, master High Realm quite readily, to his father's immense relief. He prefered, however, the lessons his parents taught him, alone at night in the basement of their home; fencing, atheleticism, durability, and guile. As the lad entered his teenage years, his eyes began to set upon girls, and his parents smiled; their long-ago gambit, they hoped, would soon pay off, landing their son in a life of power and prestige; and, with any luck, it might provide some pay-offs on their end as well. Ceril became quite the capable, precocious boy, managing to squirm his way into his fair share of trouble, though he usually evaded the consequences, by luck if not by skill. His life changed one day, when he was fourteen; the day the new General, Cathak Kitono, arrived to marshall Greyfalls' military force. Along with his general staff, he brought the sole remaining member of his immediate family; his daughter, Cathak Isola. Ceril was smitten the moment he saw the girl in the parade. Her regal bearing, Terrestrial Exalted heritage, her long, straight brown hair, and deliciously fair skin, so much like his own, instantly elevated her in his esteem far and away above even the most beautiful local Nuri or Tanu girl. Most fathers, at noticing their son's obvious designs on the daughter of a foreign general, would give said son a stern lecture on remembering their place in life. Ceril's father, on the other hand, choose that to be the catalyst for telling his son of his provenance; that his true father had, in fact, been one of the Terrestrial Exalted, and they had given him as much as they could in the hopes that he, too, would express the powers of the princes of the earth. What young man would fail to be ecstatic at the news that he, himself, had been born of one of th Dragon-Blooded; potentially to Exalt himself... And to thus catapult himself into leauge to win the heart and hand of the noblegirl whose eyes he had mere hours ago become infatuated with? He determined to catch her eye; to speak with the regally-born girl who had captured his imagination. His friends mocked his goal mercilessly, but aided him in a series of ever-increasingly elaborate and dramatic stunts to be enacted when she left the diamond-shaped Garrison Heights, some of which were even successful in making the boy's antics seen by the young scion of House Cathak. Nearly a year passed, and the boy, now 15, recieved what seemed to be almost a godsend; Cathak Isola, the girl he had been desperately trying to get to notice him, was to take an escorted tour of the Greyfalls provinces and countryside. His indulgant parents, hoping, perhaps, that the minor 'adventure' would spur their son to the greatness they dreamed of for him, agreed to let him go on a similar tour of the countryside, with the tactic implication that he would try to attract her notice away from the throngs of the city - and of course, the multitude of city watch. They coulden't have known, of course, just how successful it would be. Their son set out early, dressed in brand-new traveling clothes his father had purchased him, with his curved sword hidden well in a pack on his back. His plan, and it was a good one, was to seem as if he were simply traveling along the same route south to Division, and had set out earlier than Cathak Isola's party. At most of the traveling waystops along the way, the boy failed to work up the courage to say anything, or try to get her attention, but on the final stretch before Division, he emboldened himself to slow down and try to strike up conversation as she passed. However, his fitful dreams caused him to sleep in late, and he found himself rushing to catch up. When he caught up, he found himself at the turning point that would change his life forever. Beastial men, like goats, wielding long spears, had set upon the young Cathak's party, in great number, overwhelming her well-disciplined guard. The boy's heart began to pound like a drum; he dropped his pack, ripping his father's sword from the inside. The last of her guards fell wounded, and a beast-man advanced on the girl with a net. She was hardly defenseless, and found a dagger, seemingly from nowhere in her robes, fighting off the beast-man attempting to capture her. Ceril barreled into the engagement with a shout of challenge, giving the young Cathak time to retrieve a sword from the corpse of one of her guards. The two youngsters proved remarkably skilled in the art of battle, exchanging names admist clashing steel, and ripping nets apart. Finally, with five more of his goat-men wounded or dead, the leader, a battle-scarred veteran stepped in, and disarmed Ceril first, tossing him into a ditch, and then the girl. As another net-wielder stepped in to catch her, she neatly took his dagger and slew him with it, though he stabbed her with her sword as he fell, and Ceril bounded from the ditch in possession of a broken spear's shaft, dashing between the bleeding, hyperventilating Isola and the rest of the goat-men. The leader snorted at the terminity, and gave his final order; "This is too much work and she's not that important. Kill the both." With three goat-men rushing each of them, both of the battered teenagers, driven to the edge of mortal endurance by the long battle, were forced to surpass mortality in order to survive; Cathak Isola, burning with the fury of the Fire Dragon, incinerated the beast-men advancing on her. Ceril, on the other hand, issued a tremendous shout of challenge. Burning with golden fire, a totemic armored man with sword and shield mirroring his moves, Ceril rushed forward, into the oncoming rush of spears, sliding between the metal-shod poles with supernatural fluidity and relieving the goatmen of their swords, stabbing them through the hearts with it. Bleating with terror, the remaining goat-men turned to flee from the pair, as mortal creatures in the face of young godlings, they fled, and, save the leader who escaped, were quickly cut down. Ceril looked down; his hands red with goat-man blood, and he looked up to the girl whom he had gone on a mission to charm; she could not have been more beautiful to him, though stained with blood and her robes ragged from the battle, she, too, held a sword in each hand, wreathed in burning flame of pure elemental nature. Her face, too, reflected the excitement and connection of the moment; a wild, fierce grin on her face, she turned to speak to the boy who had fought at her side, intervening and aiding her when the best house troops with her had fallen; to find herself facing one of the dreaded Anathema, the swords falling from his hands as the look on her face went from wildly excited to horrified. He saw the reason in the fallen shield of one of her escort soldiers; staring at his face, glowing with the golden sunburst symbol of The Foresaken. Horror filled his own face at the sight, and this probably stayed her hand for the moment it took him to meet her eyes again. He turned, and he ran, south; she declined to chase him, though she knew it her duty, she also knew that she was wounded and young. He ran, ran so far away, when the wilderness south of the south road gave way to the Little Rock River he kept running, straight across the water, and on for what seemed to be forever. When his driven rush to run south had faded, Ceril collapsed in the middle of a field of wild flowers, passing out. Whilst unconcious, however, he was not even given a rest; he experianced a vision of a great man, his skin like flowing gold, with the sun itself burning overhead; the man rising from a waist-deep lake of gold. "You are the first of my lions," he spoke to Ceril. "Yours is a task most vital, for you are the shield and the sword standing between Creation and that which would devastate it; yours is a place most nessessary, you are the shield and the sword standing between thankless, fearful innocents and those who would consume them. Gird thyself in the truth, and arm thyrself with mercy, and go forth; return my light to Creation!" The vision ended, but when Ceril awoke, two images burned in his brain; a in forgotten jungle, a mighty plate of gold lay under a tree upon which grew a crystal, and in a towering vault of bronze, a container of music itself, a magnificent sword of gold lay hidden amongst pipes of metal. He had to retrieve them; acquiring the items burning in his dreams consumed his thoughts, drove him along the roads and paths, to take passage on ships through payment or stowing away. Eventually he found the jungle he sought, guided by an instinct, and within it he found the armor and the crystal he journeyed for, and when he returned from the easterly woods, in the distance he saw a mountain, topped with a domed tower, and the boy smiled, for he had found what he had sought after indeed. Appearance and Personality Ceril walks confidently and surely; though a teenager, he carries himself strong, as a man. His fair skin and blue hair are striking, features which stand out in the East. He wears a set of traveling clothes, well-worn indeed but sturdily woven of cotton, dyed red; a long cloak billows around his back, and his boots are both obviously heavily-used, and hard-wearing. When he wishes it, he may arm or armor himself with incredible swiftness; drawing a gargantuan sword from the very air around him, or materializing a suit of golden armor in his hands and donning it with lightning speed; both armor and sword bear a glowing, obvious hearthstone; the sword's stone set in the blade near the hilt, the armor's hearthstone set in the very middle, in the protruding hasp in the center of the breastplate itself. Attributes Physical (Primary) Strength 3 Dexterity 4 Stamina 4 Social (Tertiary) Charisma 2 Manipulation 2 Appearance 3 Mental (Secondary) Perception 3 Intelligence 3 Wits 3 Abilities DAWN Archery Martial Arts ''' '''Melee 5 Thrown ' '''War ' ZENITH '''Integrity 2 Performance 2 Presence 2 Resistance 5 Survival TWILIGHT Craft Skills Craft (Air) Craft (Earth) Craft (Fire) Craft (Water) Craft (Wood) Investigation Lore 2 Medicine Occult NIGHT Athletics 3 Awareness 3 Dodge 3 Larceny Stealth 3 ECLIPSE Bureaucracy Linguistics 1 Ride 2 Sail Socialize Languages Native Language: Rivertongue (Greyfalls) Language 1: High Realm Language 2 Language 3 Language 4 Language 5 Backgrounds Merciful Glory Grand Daiklaive Artifact 4; 3 BG dots +3 EXP Irreproachable Gauntlet of the Unconquered Sun Artifact Reinforced Breastplate; 4 3 BP +3 EXP Apex' Memorial Hearthstone: Gemstone of Spoken Language; 3 BG Dots Prehistoric Subgaian Jungle Hearthstone: Gemstone of Resilient Bamboo; 1 BG dot + 2 Bonus Points Artifacts Merciful Glory * Artifact Grand Daiklaive 4 * Speed 5 * Accuracy +4 * Damage +12L/4 * Defense +2 * Rate 3 * Attune Cost: 8 * Tags: Two-Handed, Overwhelming (4), Piercing, Reach * Hearthstone Slots: 3 (1 used) * Above stats factor in Oricalcum Magical Material Bonii. * Extra Commited Motes from Charms: 1 (Summoning the Loyal Steel) * Total Committed Motes: 9 The Irreproachable Gauntlet of the Unconquered Sun *Artifact Reinforced Breastplate 4 * Soak: 12L | 11B * Hardness: 9L | 9B * Mobility -1 (-0) * Fatigue 1 (0) * Attune Cost: 6 motes * Hearthstone Slots: 1 (1 used) * Above stats factor in Oricalcum Magical Material Bonii. * Extra Committed Motes from Charms: 4; (3 Armored Scout's Invigoration, 1 Hauberk-Lightning Gesture) * Total Committed Motes: 10 Manses Prehistoric Subgaian Jungle * Wood Manse 3 * Hearthstone: Stone of Resilient Bamboo ** Powers *** Outside Fate *** Provider *** Subtle Breath of Sextes Jylis *** Cosmetic Displays ** Drawbacks *** Inhabitability, 1 point Apex' Memorial * Air Manse 3 * Hearthstone: Gemstone of Spoken Language ** Powers *** Mela's Sweet Whispers *** Zone of Influence *** Control Room *** Comfort Zone ** Drawbacks *** Fragility, 1 point Charms Here you should list your Charms. Please format them using Sub-Heading Mark-up by the related Ability (or Attribute, for you darn Lunars), and use * Bullet Lists for the individual Charm. More asterisks give you sub-bullets and sub-sub bullets, so you may freely represent trees of charms with indented bullets. Please begin each entry with the name of the charm in question, then a slash, the cost, another slash and the page (if applicable), and (if the Charm comes from a book other than Exalted 2nd Edition) the book it came from. (Custom Charms should simply have “Custom” in place of the Page entry, and no Book entry at all.) Dawn Charms Melee Charms * First Melee Excellency (Core; 183) ** Infinate Melee Mastery (Core; 184-185) ** Dipping Swallow Defense (Core; 192-193) ***Bulwark Stance (Core; 193) **** Heavenly Guardian Defense (Core; 193) * Call the Blade (Core; 191-192) ** Summoning the Loyal Steel (Core; 192) Zenith Charms Integrity Charms * Integrity-Protecting Prana (Core; 199) Presence Charms * Second Presence Excellency (Core; 184-185) Resistance Charms * Second Resistance Excellency (Core; 184-185) ** Immunity to Everything Technique (Core; 208) * Whirlwind Armor-Donning Prana (Core; 205) ** Hauberk-Lightning Gesture (Core; 205) *** Armored Scout's Invigoration (Core; 205) * Ox-Body Technique (Half-Learned | Core; 208) Twilight Charms Night Charms Eclipse Charms Charm Details Here you may (if you wish) reproduce the full blocks of text from the book(s) you get your Charms out of, for your own reference. This section is optional, you may skip it if you wish. * Heavenly Guardian Defense Flaw of Invunerability: Valor * First Ox-Body is of the -1, -2, -2 variety. Equipment This section should list the equipment your character routinely uses and carries with them. Attention should be paid to weapons and armor, whether mundane or magical; please reproduce their statistics in full, but omit any the bulk of background text for artifacts and such. (Mundane equipment that has a special background should have a brief explanation.) Remember that you need to insert either two line breaks by using the Enter key on your keyboard, or HTML line break markup. Mundane Equipment Magical Equipment Merciful Glory * Artifact Grand Daiklaive 4 * Speed 5 * Accuracy +4 * Damage +12L/4 * Defense +2 * Rate 3 * Attune Cost: 8 * Tags: Two-Handed, Overwhelming (4), Piercing, Reach * Hearthstone Slots: 3 (1 used) * Above stats factor in Oricalcum Magical Material Bonii. * Extra Commited Motes from Charms: 1 (Summoning the Loyal Steel) * Total Committed Motes: 9 The Irreproachable Gauntlet of the Unconquered Sun *Artifact Reinforced Breastplate 4 * Soak: 12L | 11B * Hardness: 9L | 9B * Mobility -1 (-0) * Fatigue 1 (0) * Attune Cost: 6 motes * Hearthstone Slots: 1 (1 used) * Above stats factor in Oricalcum Magical Material Bonii. * Extra Committed Motes from Charms: 4; (3 Armored Scout's Invigoration, 1 Hauberk-Lightning Gesture) * Total Committed Motes: 10 Vital Information Willpower 5/5 Please list your Permanent willpower as a number, and track Willpower expenses also as a number before it. (Ex, if you had 5 Permanent Willpower and have expended one point, you might write 4/5 for your Willpower.) Virtues Please mark your Primary Virtue clearly, and delinate your Virtues as numbers; with a seperate number to indicate the number of times that Virtue has been channeled for bonus die on a roll. (Ex, if you had Compassion as your primary, had 4 dots of Compassion and had Channeled it for four bonus dice twice, you would write Compassion (Primary) 2/4). Compassion 3/3 (Primary) Conviction 2/2 Temperance 2/2 Valor 2/2 Limit 0/10 Please indicate your Limit as a numerical value, opposed to 10. (IE, if you had two points of Limit, you would write 2/10). Virtue Flaw: Compassionate Martyrdom *Overcome with the need to alleviate the suffering he witnesses, the character throws himself into helping the victims in the most direct and dramatic fashion possible. If the character's Limit Breaks while watching an overseer beat slaves, he stands before the whip, allowing blows meant for others to fall upon him instead. The character will not resort to violence unless he is attacked or is already in combat. * Partial Control: If the character attempts to control the Limit Break, he must still immediately and directly aid those who are suffering. However, he can choose to do so more effectively - including by killing the brutal overseer and freeing the slaves in the above example. * Duration: One scene in combat or one day otherwise. * Limit Break Condition: The character witnesses innocents suffering through no fault of their own. Combat Statistics Defense Values Dodge DV 5 Dodge DV is (Dexterity + Dodge + Essence if 2 or greater)/2, round up Parry DV 6 Parry is rated as (Dexterity + Ability + Weapon Defense Bonus)/2, round up. Mental Dodge DV 5 Mental Dodge is calculated as (Willpower + Integrity + Pertinent Specialty + Essence)/2 In this instance, Willpower is treated as an Attribute for determining Charm bonus maximums, round up. Mental Parry DV 3 Mental Parry DV is calculated as the higher of Charisma or Manipulation + the highest of Investigation, Performance or Presence, plus any pertinent specializations, divided by two, rounded up. (Mathematically, that's (Attribute + Ability + Specialization)/2, rounded up. Stunts must be appropriate to the attribute/ability combination used. (You may use a sub-optimal ability at any time on your own behest.) Soak Please delineate your Soak values numerically, and in parenthesis after your nominal Soak values, the value of Soak that would apply against a Piercing attack. (Ex. If your Natural Lethal Soak before armor is 3 (thus indication that you probably have Stamina 3), and your armor adds 6 points of Lethal soak, you would write Lethal Soak 9(6) . Remember: Natural Soak, unless specifically allowed, does not apply against Aggrevated soak, so in the example above, you would only write Aggravated Soak 6(3) - a very good reason not to be hit by anything capable of dealing Aggravated damage!) Bashing Soak 15 Bashing Hardness 9 Lethal Soak 16 Lethal Hardness 9 Aggravated Soak 12 Health 10/10 For brief reference (so it will appear in the table of contents), list your health levels in the Health entry as your current health levels versus your temporary health levels (Ex, if you had no applications of the Ox-Body Charm and one box of wound, you would list 6/7.) For completion, track your Health levels here – a bracketed box which is empty is undamaged, one with a B has been filled with a Bashing wound, one with an L has been filled with a Lethal wound, and one with an A has been filled with an Aggravated wound. Add additional boxes as necessary, remember to preserve line break formatting. Remember to add Dying boxes equal to your Stamina. ~0 [ ] ~1 [ ] [ ] [ ] ~2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] ~4 [ ] Incapacitated [ ] Dying [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Essence 3 Personal Pool: 14/14 Peripheral Pool: 16/35 Committed: 19 Peripheral * Merciful Glory: 9 ** Attunement cost: 8 ** Summoning the Loyal Steel cost: 1 * Irreproachable Gauntlet of the Unconquered Sun: 10 ** Attunement cost: 6 ** Hauberk-Lightning Gesture: 1 ** Armored Scout's Invigoration: 3 Other Information Use the space provided to track additional information about your character. Intimacies 1. Postive intimacy towards Cathak Isola. Ceril is quite taken with her, and even after the horror on her face when she observed his Caste Mark, he is very much smitten with her. 2. Negative intimacy towards the idea of women being hurt. Perhaps it is sexist of him, but the idea of (Dragons forbid the actuality of) a woman being harmed, especially by a man, drives Ceril to fits of anger. Experience Use this space to track your character's available and total Experience (and mark it above in terms of available versus total.) Experience Point Expenditure Use this space to track your character's experience point expenditure. Various OOC Notes And finally, use this space to track any other information you want to keep track of.